A dwindling Saguaro National Park in the Sonoran Desert outside Tucson suffocated by an invasive grass. Baren prairies where pine forests once thrived near Flagstaff. The Colorado River run dry, leading to desalinated ocean water as drinking water for the state.
These are just a few of the possibilities that experts offered for how Arizona’s forests, deserts and major metropolitan areas might look at the end of the century given generally accepted rates of global warming.

An increase in smuggling violence at the Sonoran Desert National Monument about 80 miles south of Phoenix has prompted a stronger warning to visitors about drug and immigrant traffickers passing through the public lands, officials said Tuesday.